The Australian Government is feuding with X owner Elon Musk over his refusal to take down a video of a recent stabbing in Australia.
The video in question depicts a violent terror attack at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Sydney, in which Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was badly injured by a knife-wielding 16-year-old. The police announced that the attack was determined to be religiously motivated, and have arrested several other teens in connection with the incident.
Legislators in Australia requested the video be taken down, claiming that it may encourage violent extremism in children. Most social media platforms quickly complied.
While X agreed to block viewing of the video in Australia, the country claimed that Musk’s actions weren’t enough, demanding that he remove the video entirely from the platform, in all countries. Musk refused, pointing out that Australia had no right to dictate what other countries’ citizens could see on social media.
It’s a dangerous game. Setting a precedent for any country to have whatever content they’d like removed isn’t only ridiculous, it’s a serious cause for concern. Imagine if China could force X to scrub all content related to the events in Tiananmen Square, or if ISIS-controlled countries could block content from Christians that clashed with their views.
Musk knows this and is determined not to cave on the issue.
Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian “eSafety Commissar” is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?
We have already censored the content in question for… https://t.co/aca9E4uAB7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024
The Australian government, however, is still trying to fight free speech. Tasmanian Sen. Jacqui Lambie claims that Musk should be in jail and that Australians should stop using X.
The Australian people want the truth.
𝕏 is the only one standing up for their rights. https://t.co/6ZwzNejKLq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2024
Many people, however, have pointed out that the Australian government has never bothered to make a fuss about objectionable content on social media until now, when it paints them in a bad light.
Home Affairs Minster Clare O’Neil even went so far as to blame all of Australia’s problems on social media.
“They are creating civil division, social unrest, just about every problem that we have as a country is either being exacerbated or caused by social media and we’re not seeing a skerrick of responsibility taken by these companies,” O’Neil said on Australia’s Channel 7 News.
“Instead, we’re seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show alleged terrorist content on his platform,” she added.
Australian citizens don’t get a bill of rights like Americans, so when current events make their government look bad, they’ll be left in the dark. We can only hope Australian politicians don’t take this any farther than they already have.
